BRICS: President focuses on Collaboration, Cooperation and Communication

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee addressed the delegates of the Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies’ Universities Summit, 2015 on Wednesday at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said that in today’s era of globalization, which rests on the pillars of Collaboration, Cooperation and Communication, there are ample opportunities to use these “3Cs” to create many world class universities. The combined strength of the five BRICS nations can develop an educational eco-system for their citizens as well as for the world citizens. He expressed hope that the Summit will come out with innovative solutions, with the cooperation of the private sector, for the emerging economies to further strengthen their higher education system and in the process emerge as leaders.

The President said that the quality of education has a direct co-relation with inclusive growth and development. Emerging economies facing the challenge of meeting the developmental aspirations of their citizens must build an educational system comparable to the best in the world. A serious discourse on how to address the quality concerns in higher education should therefore begin at the earliest. The higher education sector in India must aligned itself with the global education sector. A world class university in today’s time is one that can address the global problems of society having the entire world as its constituency.

The President said that to meet bench-marks, institutions need to provide greater emphasis on quality research that is recognized globally. This would help in their efforts to become world-class. What is needed further is for such aspiring universities to reach out, communicate, exchange and encourage mobility of persons and ideas across the globe. Adopting a world-view would help an institution getting accepted by the global community of higher education. Over and above a focused attention on cutting-edge research and an international orientation, world-class universities must possess other enviable features. Some of them are high quality faculty members, meritorious students, an encouraging teaching learning environment, a high level of resource availability, sound infrastructure, and existence of considerable autonomy and robust governance structure. Presence of these elements in an institution would automatically reflect in higher international rankings.

On the occasion, the President also received the first copy of Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings, 2016 from Shri Naveen Jindal, Founding Chancellor, O P Jindal Global University who formally released it.